Hi All,
I’m confused as to the order of operations to get True Nas running on Proxmox and setting up VMs.
My system is:
2 x Intel Enterprise SSDs - this is running ZFS with Proxmox in RAID1
2 x Samsung 860 EVO mSATA SSD - I wanted to run TrueNas with ZFS/RAID1 on these disks
2 x Samsung Enterprise 2TB SAS SSDs - this was going to host a 2TB mirror for Blue iris, but needs TrueNas running first
6 x WD 2TB Red spinning - RAID6 archive of files, photos, media etc
Any tips?
Thanks
Well, if you want to run TrueNAS on top of Proxmox, you obviously need to install Proxmox first. If you then want to use TrueNAS as storage for a Windows VM, it’s equally obvious (isn’t it?) that you’d need to install and configure TrueNAS before that Windows VM.
Use Truenas as your Hypervisor.
Oh, God, no.
Yeah, I’d prefer Proxmox I think. Maybe i’m over complicating things.
I dont want to derail the thread, but why not ?
A simple windows VM for Blue Iris is possible even using the less than stellar VM capabilities of Truenas.
I think you’ve answered your own question. But admittedly, a single VM might be OK–though I’ve never dared to run Windows in a TrueNAS VM before.
Will be running a few
plex, openhab and blueiris
Plex I’d run on the NAS itself, since that’s presumably where its data lives. I use a custom Compose stack under Dockge, since I don’t trust the apps ecosystem. I’d probably do the same for anything else that would be running under Docker, especially if it would be consuming data that lives on the NAS.
I run TrueNAS on a VM hosted by Proxmox. For the storage, I have a separate PCI HBA adapter card with 7 SATA disk drives. That PCI HBA adapter is passed through to the TrueNAS VM. You should do this with your 2 storage disks.
Thanks. Did you pass through hba through or the disks ? if you pass through hba do all the disks automatically get passed through too?
Pass through the HBA, and black-list it from Proxmox. And to be on the safe side, set multihost on the pool:
Sounds like I’m best to just setup a few ZFS pools of various types for my VM OS’s and do it in Promox only.
I can forward the discs on the HBA I need to TrueNas which will all be slower/rotational disks for archive storage.
Create the ZFS in TrueNas then some how presenting that storage back to Proxmox makes no sense to me because you can only use ISCSI or NFS.
I passed through the PCI HBA card. The disks will show up and become available in the VM
@dan I passthrough the PCI card to the VM and when the VM is up and running, that PCI card is not available for passthrough to any other VM and it is not used by the proxmox host. I did not have to explicitly black-list it. I believe that proxmox automatically black-lists any passed through devices when a VM is actively using it.
Unrelated to TrueNAS, I have a FreeBSD VM and an Ubuntu VM both configured as XFCE desktops and I passthrough a USB mouse/keyboard and the PCI Nvidia GPU I use to both. I cannot have both VM’s up and running simultaneously due to the passthrough’s, Proxmox will only allow one of the VM’s to run. This works out for me as I just start up the one I wish to use.
There are other threads that appear to suggest otherwise. I haven’t paid close attention to them, as I’m not running TrueNAS virtualized, but blacklisting the controller does seem to be common advice for Proxmox (the only major hypervisor I’m aware of that’s ZFS-aware).
Ahh, I double checked the documentation and Proxmox does not automatically black-list the device. However, in my case I specifically installed the HBA PCI card to be used by my TrueNAS VM and it is never used on the Proxmox host or passed through to any other VM. I’ve been using it this way for over a year and have not encountered any issues. But, I’m going to go back and take care of this. Thanks for the heads up!
This is a case where defense in depth helps a lot. Passthrough, blacklist the module in the host, and set the multihost=on property of the pool. Better safe than sorry!
OK so you asked how not if your should.
1 install Proxmox
2 install TrueNas on a full VM in Proxmox
3 pass through the HBA and disks so that TrueNAS can control them.
IMHO, but as to the why.
If you were using VM’s enough that you needed the better Proxmox, I expect you would already know what was needed. As you are asking for help, I will assume you are not running much.
Based on that assumption, you are only running a few basic VM’s (I may be totally wrong but am I?).
TrueNAS is your core data storage, if that is your key functionality keep data accessible and safe, you should focus on the NAS and run TrueNAS on metal.
Then use the VM and now LXC capabilities to run your services.
If your really are running enough services to need/want a Proxmox, I would suggest you should be running 2 systems.
Now there is the last option, you want to learn about both and play with both in a lab … to LEARN as much as to have services running. Running the TrueNAS as a VM will allow you to play with both and figure things out… But you are putting your data as risk. Like for REAL at risk.
So lastly remember that redundancy is not back up.
so Back up Dat NAS how ever you set it up.
Cheers and GL
thanks for all the wise words! Appreciated. I’m sorted now
